Since I don't think you are stupid, I can only conclude you're unable to stop yourself from trying to rationalize your behavior and you're unwilling to just admit you're not right.
Let me give you an analogy and you can try to explain how your situation is any different.
Alice owns a small private airplane and hires Bob, an airplane engine mechanic to perform maintenance.
Afterward, Alice decides it would be prudent to have a second mechanic just double check the engine. She hired Charlie, but it's really Bob who has a disguise and a fake mustache.
Alice flies her plane, it works fine, no one gets hurt. Bob points to this fact to rationalize his behavior.
But his friend David is giving him flak for the deception, so Bob decides not to cash the second check made to Charlie. Now he really feels good because no one got hurt and he never double charged Alice.
But what he's missing is that he deceived Alice, deprived her of the benefit of lower risk, and justified it all by pointing that he had done the job correctly. Using insanely twisted logic, he says: "well if I didn't know what I was doing, the plane would have gone down, but that would have happened the same if she didn't hire a second mechanic to double check, or if I did the checking myself."
so, how is what you did any different than "Bob"?
There are several differences.
First, in your situation in the event that Bob had made a mistake, the damage would be irreversible. Lives would be lost, and people cannot be "unkilled", once those on board the airplane are dead, that is the end of their lives, period. On the other hand, if the escrow makes a mistake (eg they send to the incorrect address, they release escrow to a party that he should not have released to and later additional information is discovered to have been available to the escrow that would reveal he should have released to the other party, ect), then the escrow will need to cover the losses out of his own pocket. The escrow making a mistake
is something that can be fixed.
Secondly your example lacks the checks and balances of the other trading partner. The plane will takeoff
only with the two signatures from Bob. When escrowing your own deal, you will need the authorization of the person you are dealing with to send funds to yourself. Granted there is the potential for a conflict of interest in this case, however it is my policy, (and although this clause was not included in the specific agreements in question, it is written in other templates, and such a policy would have been enforced) that if it is not abundantly clear which side to take in a dispute then a scam accusation should be opened so the community can help moderate the dispute, this is not unlike what happened
here but with an actual escrow involved. A similar point is that it is very rare for there to be any kind of dispute when dealing with escrow. Both when discussing deals I have been a direct party to and deals that I have escrowed, there really have not been any disputes that have not been extremely clearcut from the very beginning. I understand that many people are saying that there is no neutral third party, however I am really not aware of any situations where, based on the evidence available that it was anything but clearcut as to which party was in the right.
Thirdly, in your example Alice wants to hire a second mechanic to check behind Bob. However in the situations that I was involved in, Alice would have gladly asked Bob to both check the first time and the second time, and would have paid a premium for doing so.
My fourth and what I believe to be my strongest point is a slightly changed scenario. Instead of Alice only owning a single airplane, she owns an airline, and there is another employee, Zach. Although there is no policy or rule against wearing disguises, and although there is no policy explicitly allowing this practice, Zach will, on multiple occasions wear a disguise and be seen by many others that work for the airline. This fact is even brought up multiple times during company meetings and no one is critical of the practice. Some may miss this point, but Bob sees that this is happening out in the open and has no reason to believe anyone would be critical of of this behavior. As a result, Bob does what is described in your post after seeing Zach doing the exact same thing without consequence.
With the above being said, I have my right to my own opinion just like you have your right to your opinion. You have the right to believe that escrowing for ones self is wrong just like I have the right to have an opinion that there is no issue with this.
With that being said, I absolutely would not escrow for myself in the future without giving the proper disclosure that this is a possibility. It is clear that some are out to get blood and will stop at nothing to get it, and will use this as a way to extract such blood.
If I were to find out that I was trading with someone who was using themselves as escrow then I would not be in any way upset, nor would I make any attempt to call them out on the issue.
If someone were to ask my opinion about escrowing for ones self then I would tell them there is a great risk that some may go after blood if this is revealed, but that I do not have any personal issue with it, and that they should make a disclosure that it is possible the escrow is wearing more then one hat.
It really is not going to be difficult to hide the fact that an account is your alt, even from the administration (at least in theory). If the community is going to "outlaw" the practice of escrowing for your own trades then people are going to assume that the escrow is not the same person as the person you are dealing with, however if there are additional risks to this practice as you claim, then people will make no effort into protecting themselves from these risks.
. While the self escrow thing was shady - not really sure it was a "scam" - more in the grey area.
